Space missions and their hardware design are compromised by conflicting requirements. In order to escape the earth's gravitational pull, an extreme amount of force and energy is required to place space hardware in orbit. Intrinsically, these high forces and energies are attenuated to the payload. Once in orbit, the vacuum of space exhibits a relatively small structural mechanical environment. Consequently, space hardware is designed with significant strength to survive the boosting environment that is unnecessary while in orbit. This “over design” results in space hardware that is structurally strong and heavy.
Additionally, in effort to save the number of orbital launches and thereby mission cost, engineers often design booster payloads to deliver several satellites at once. To do this, structural “busses” or “trees” are designed to hang the satellites on while under the boost load. Because of the harsh booster environment, these busses are strong and heavy, performing a very limited and crucial mission before being ditched and destroyed in atmosphere. A subsequent problem is the amount of hardware left as space debris these traditional solutions deploy.
Currently, space payloads are designed with following principles: space-bound payloads must survive the boosting environment typically exceeding 10 Gs axial at 10 Hz continuous and synchronous with elevated temperatures. Payload support structures must be designed to survive the temperature and chemical extremes of space. Payload support structures must be designed in such a way as to not obstruct the functional hardware on the satellite or satellite bus (where the term “bus” is used to describe the payload structure that carries several satellites or satellite components into orbit). The resulting large and geometrically inefficient designs are left as over-massed structures in space, providing little or no value in the mechanically benign environment of space. In addition, such designs are bulky and expensive, leading to two historic prominent issues. First, weight is money for orbital launches; therefore, bulk is expensive. Second, space components have a limited life usage, and when the components are no longer useful, the result is bulk left in space. In the last twenty years, scientists have studied the effects of space debris as a result of old satellites and have contended that this is a serious threat to the ability to field new hardware into desirable orbits.
Currently, the sublimating foam industry is limited to decomposing packaging materials used to protect earth-bound payloads against the physical environment of transportation. Recently, environmental pressures have mandated that organic foams such as polystyrene not only decompose in atmosphere but also under water and soil, where there are limited oxygen molecules available. For this reason, recent efforts have been made to coat packaging materials with oxidizers that require very little light or heat to release and attack the foam.
Thus, what is needed is a solution that protects payloads, i.e., space hardware during launch, but is disposable once the payload is in space.